Miami (October 10, 2023) - Women journalists and media executives, at the forefront of the fight for press freedom and the preservation of journalism, will be notable protagonists at the 79th General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association to be held November 9-12 in Mexico City.
The IAPA will award the Chapultepec Prize for the exceptional contribution to the press of human rights activist Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. This organization has been accompanying the IAPA's fight against impunity. It will also award Mexican journalist María del Carmen Arístegui with the Grand Press Freedom Award 2023 "for her commitment and courage," and IAPA will highlight as Executive of the Year the publisher of The Post and Courier newspaper of South Carolina, Pamela J. Browning, for her innovative management in favor of media sustainability.
Julia Pace, executive editor of The Associated Press, will be one of the keynote speakers. Her dissertation, "Public Discourse and Disinformation: Journalism as a Defender of Democracy in 2024," will be part of an interview with IAPA President Michael Greenspon of The New York Times.
The IAPA invited the two pre-candidates for Mexico's 2024 presidential elections, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and Bertha Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz, to discuss their ideas on freedom of the press and freedom of expression should they win the Los Pinos residence and also invited them to sign the Declaration of Chapultepec.
Martha Ramos, president of the World Editors Forum (WEF) and editorial director of the Organización Editorial Mexicana (OEM), will host a panel on inclusion and gender that will include Gabriela Cañas, president of Agencia EFE; Gabriela Vivanco, director of La Hora de Ecuador and president of the IAPA Executive Committee; and Mariana Alvarado, leader of the Latin American Journalism Diversity Network (Red para la Diversidad del Periodismo Latinoamericano).
Panels on media sustainability will include Cynthia Hudson, executive director of CNN en Español and CNN's Hispanic strategy; Andrea Miranda, content director of Debate Media; Julia Schvartzer of Chartbeat; Cecilia Fallabrino of UPAX and Carla Sánchez-Armas, of the Motion Picture Association for Latin America. Catalina Jiménez, dean of the School of Communication at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente in Colombia, will present the book of the last international congress of the Latin American Council for Accreditation of Education in Journalism and Communication (CLAEP) held this year in Cali. And Gabriela Ippolito-O'Donnell will speak on the influence of China in Latin America.
Karen Wykurz of the Open Technology Fund and Cristina Smith of the Voice of America's Press Freedom Project will participate in a panel on the protection of journalists, and Albertina Piterbarg of UNESCO will speak on elections and violence against the press.
Discussions on press freedom will include four regional vice presidents of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Silvia Miró Quesada of El Comercio of Peru, Natalia Zucolillo of ABC Color of Paraguay, Iary Gómez of Costa Rica and Leonor Mulero of Grupo Ferré Rangel of Puerto Rico, who will also lead the IAPA awards ceremony as chairman of the Awards Committee. Mexican journalist María Idalia Gómez will be the instructor of a special workshop on protection for journalists. Venezuelan Argelia Perozo of the Andrés Bello Catholic University of Venezuela will present the results of the Chapultepec Index 2023. María Eugenia Mohme, of Grupo La República of Peru, as Secretary of the IAPA, will coordinate the meeting of the Board of Directors.
IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It comprises more than 1,300 publications from the western hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida, United States.
